535 



THE MACDONALD COLLEGE 
MOVEMENT 



An Address 

Before the National Education Association 

of the United States 

At Denver, Colorado, July 7, 1909 



JAMES W. ROBERTSON, D.Sc, LL.D., C.M.G. 

Principal of Macdonald College, 

Quebec, Canada 



Reprinted from 

the Proceedings of the Association 

1909 



THE MACDONALD COLLEGE 
MOVEMENT 



An Address 

Before the National Education Association 

of the United States 

At Denver, Colorado, July 7, 1909 



BY 

JAMES W. ROBERTSON, D.Sc, LL.D., C.M.G. 

Principal of Macdonald College, 
Quebec, Canada 



Reprinted from 

the Proceedings of the Association 

1909 



THE MACDONALD COLLEGE MOVEMENT 

JAMES W. ROBERTSON, PRINCIPAL OF MACDONALD COLLEGE, STE. ANNE 
DE BELLEVUE, QUEBEC, CANADA 

For the whole country as a matter of protection, safety, and insurance, it 
behooves us to look well to the training of the young people toward rural life, 
and to look well to the training of leaders for them. The Macdonald move- 
ment, as helped by Sir William C. Macdonald, has nothing destructive in it. 
It does not desire to destroy anything that now exists in rural districts, except 
weeds, but it hopes to help in building up something better than is now known 
and done, and thereby displace what is poor. It aims at helping the rural 
population to understand better what education is and what it aims at for them 
and their children. It plans to help in providing more competent leaders for 
the horticultural and agricultural population. Somebody's watchfulness, 
somebody's thoughtfulness, and somebody's thoroness are always required; 
and the progress of the people in all worthy ways can be increased in what 
might be called geometric ratio thru intelligent leaders who possess and use 
such qualities with unselfish public spirit. 

At that time, in 1898-99, in fact before that. Sir William C. Macdonald had 
been most anxious to help to improve rural schools in Canada, and he came 
to me for some help in the way of plan-making and administration. I said 
that, in my judgment, the first thing to do was to give object-lessons of manual 
training in the elementary schools of cities and towns so as to educate public 
opinion in favor of better methods of education in places where newspapers 
were pubUshed and to which the country people looked for guidance. He 
rather demurred, saying that the city and town schools were already too good 
in comparison with the country schools, and tended to draw people in from 
the country to the towns in order to get education for their children. After- 
ward when he saw it would be a means of helping the rural schools he said, 
"All right, we \v\\\ carry on the manual training in some town schools." 
The man in the rural district imitates the man who lives in town. The man 
who lives in town has the best chance of being a leader; and the man in the 
country would not be willing to take a lower grade of education for his boy 
than a town or city man. It was important to get the leaders from the city 
to recognize improvement by means of practical education. This was the 
reason for the Macdonald Manual Training Fund and its work. Manual 
training was the first step in this plan. The rural school was not an after- 
thought; it did not come out of the manual-training movement. The manual- 
training movement was a step toward the other end — that of improving the 
rural schools. Hitherto the wealth and wisdom of the country have been 
given to town schools. The little rural school has been left without hel <. 

Sir William C. Macdonald furnished funds to establish manual-training 
centers in connection with the public schools in twenty-one places, from 
Prince Edward Island to British Columbia, and to maintain them without cost 

93 



t>^ f^ Sessions] MACDONALD COLLEGE MOVEMENT 93 



:iiM|: 



to the pupils or the public for a period, in most cases, of three years. At first 
special teachers of ability and experience were brought in from outside, mostly 
from England. Some twenty-seven manual-training teachers were thus 
brought into Canada. As time went on Canadian teachers were trained and 
became duly qualified. Before the end of the period of maintenance by the 
Macdonald fund, there were forty-five manual-training teachers on the salary 
roll at a cost of some $3,600 per month, and more than 7,000 boys were taking 
the courses. Summer courses were provided for teachers of urban and rural 
schools. In the cities on Saturday forenoons, or at some other convenient 
time every week, classes were arranged for the teachers from whose rooms the 
boys went to the manual-training centers. In Ottawa these classes were 
attended by over ninety teachers, and in Montreal and in Toronto by over a 
hundred in each place. This work was begun seven years ago and in 1903 
(in Montreal in 1 904) the local authorities in the several provinces took over 
and extended the work. The equipment was presented free to the school 
boards, and in the case of the normal schools to the provincial governments. 
Now over 20,000 boys and girls in Canadian schools receive the benefits of 
manual training in their regular course under the school authorities as a 
result of Sir William's benefaction in giving that form of industrial and agri- 
cultural education a good friendly lift. 

SEED GRAIN PRIZES 

Out of the Macdonald Manual Training Fund came the Macdonald 
Seed Grain Competition carried on by boys on farms dotted all over Canada 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The main purpose of this movement was 
to improve the crops of Canada by encouraging the general use of seed im- 
proved by selection from varieties of which the product is in demand or has a 
relatively high market value. The use of such seed increases the quantity 
of produce per acre; makes the quality better, and thus renders rural occupa- 
tions more profitable and the people who follow them more prosperous and 
more contented. I went to my friend, William C. Macdonald, of Montreal, 
and said in substance: "Here is a great chance to do some educational work 
in progressive agriculture; to do something interesting, something attractive, 
something definite, something beneficial to the whole community, something 
easy and yet with plenty of difficulties. Farmers and their families may fail 
to appreciate the educational advantages of a plan or scheme set out in a 
written statement, but here is something which would be so helpful and instruct- 
ive to boys and girls that they would go on with it, and the habits of observa- 
tion and thought and study would go on with them." I told him $10,000 
for prizes would set and keep this thing going for three years. He provided the 
money with all good-will — my little $100 come back a hundred fold — to offer 
as prizes to boys and girls to encourage them to carry out in practice the plan 
of selecting the largest heads of the most vigorous plants and growing seed 
from those heads on a plot by itself. 



94 



NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION [Gmtnl 



The yields from the crojis of 1900 compared with those of 1903, on an 
average for all Canada for spring wheat, showed an increase of 18 per cent, 
in the number of grains per hundred heads, and 28 per cent, of increase in the 
weight of grains per hundred heads. In oats the figures were 19 per cent, of 
increase in the number of grains per hundred heads, and 27 per cent, of increase 
in the weight of grains per hundred heads. These are results from several 
hundred seed grain plots operated by boys and girls. Altogether over 1,500 
entries were received. Out of that number 800 completed in full the first year's 
Work, and 450 of them completed the three years' work in a satisfactory manner. 

CANADIAN SEED GROWERS' ASSOCIATION 

Many of the farmers on whose farms the competition was carried on were 
formed into the Macdonald-Robertson Seed Growers' Association, out of 
which grew the Canadian Seed Growers' Association. Its third annual 
meeting was held in June, 1906, and the report of its proceedings contained a 
marvelous record of valuable public service. Particular information was 
obtained from leading members of the association. These reported several 
distinct and definite gains from the method of selection which had been 
followed by the members of the association — namely: the size and quality of 
the kernels definitely improved; the strains of selected seed maturing more 
evenly; the strains becoming better adapted to local conditions; varieties 
being kept pure; the strains becoming more resistant to disease and gaining in 
productiveness. All these are highly desirable and give added value to the 
crops in every case. 

I made inquiries last year from the Seed Branch of the Department of 
Agriculture and from members of the Canadian Seed Growers' Association. 
I gathered from their estimates that one of the direct results from the seed 
grain competition was an increase in the value of the grain crops on the 
relatively few farms as yet following the selecting practice to the extent of at 
least $500,000. That is high finance for you. High finance by a man of 
lofty intelUgence and spirit — 5,000 per cent, on an investment of $10,000, and 
the best of it all is that Sir William Macdonald has not sought and did not 
receive a single dollar of return for himself from it. That is laying up treasures 
where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt and which goes on gathering and 
dififusing benefits for ever and for ever for the people. 

SCHOOL GARDENS 

Under the Macdonald Rural School Fund, arrangements were made 
for providing a school garden at each of five rural schools in each of five 
provinces. A trained instructor was placed in charge of each group of five 
gardens and of the nature-study work at them. He spent one day at one 
school and the next at another. The cost of this was met by Sir William 
Macdonald. 

At the school gardens an effort is being made to give the children informa- 
tion and training in three important matters in connection with agriculture: 



Sessions] MACDONALD COLLEGE MOVEMENT 



95 



the selection of seed; the rotation of crops; and the protection of crops against 
weeds, disease, and insects. It is really industrial education. Children find 
out something by doing, observing, and recording the results themselves, and 
I say it over again that all worthy progress, in matters that are worth think- 
ing about, springs from learning the lessons of consequences. As soon as a 
child understands that, and governs his life accordingly, he becomes a better 
pupil and the promise of a better citizen in every sense. 

The school garden is one way of making rural hfe more popular as well 
as efficient. It may be the first step toward actuating the people to pay more 
to make the schools more efficient. The best education in rural schools should 
make the people like rural life and also enable them to make it more profitable. 
The best way to make any workman like his work is to make him understand 
it. The beginnings of all that and much more are laid in the schools. 

In the largest school, two hours' work per week by the pupils was found 
requisite to keep the gardens in proper condition. In one school the enthusi- 
asm was so great that the pupils did all their garden work outside the regular 
school hours. At this school, also, the garden did not suffer from neglect in 
the slightest degree during the midsummer vacation of six weeks. Experience 
indicates that when the gardens are fully organized the plots can be well kept 
by devoting two half-hours per week to the work. This time is mentioned, 
not as the ideal condition, but as an encouragement to those who may desire 
to start school gardens in districts where prejudices are likely to be met. The 
fact is that in the ordinary ungraded school, and for that matter in the urban 
school as well, the working power of the pupils is ill-sustained thruout the day 
owing to their merely forced interest in much of the prescribed work. An 
awakening as to the educational waste of our schools is coming, and when the 
school garden is seen in its true relation, it will have a period in each day of 
the school program during the growing season. The children have ample time 
to spare, and the work of the gardens is promoting their intelligence and 
progress in the ordinary school course. 

Mr. E. A. Howes, who is now principal of the Macdonald Consolidated 
School at Guelph, Ontario, had charge of the school garden nearest the city 
of Ottawa. I venture to include the following extracts from an article by 
him: 

Bowesville, Ontario, which is situated six miles south of the Dominion capital, has 
long been regarded as one of the most progressive sections in the progressive county of 
Carleton, and it is to the active interest of its people in the welfare of their school that the 
credit for a large measure of the success of the movement here is due. They have never 
interfered but to aid. Land sufficient to make a school ground comprising two and one- 
half acres was purchased, and this was enclosed by a neat fence with turned posts and 
attractive gates. 

The daily attendance at Bowesville school may be placed at approximately fifty 
children, ranging from six to sixteen. The plan of dual ownership of garden plots has 
been followed here, a senior and junior pupil having joint ownership in a piece of ground 
(ten feet by twenty feet), working in conjunction and making a just division of the spoils at 
time of harvest. This plan gets over the diflSculty experienced when juniors are shouldered 



96 NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION [General 

with the entire responsibility of managing a plot, while it does not destroy the sense of 
ownership which makes proud the juvenile gardener. In laying out and cultivating the 
garden plots the entire work, with the exception of the ploughing of the ground, was per- 
formed by the children and, it may be added, cheerfully performed. Neighboring farmers 
brought manure for the garden and ploughed the ground. 

The experimental plots, belonging to the senior class, deserve special notice. Experi- 
ments in crop rotation, in the effect of clover growth, and in potato spraying have been 
carried on and results carefully noted. Bowesville is the center of the largest potato pro- 
ducing section in eastern Canada, so particular attention was paid to potato spraying 
experiments. In addition to the class experimental plots mentioned, three of the oldest 
pupils carried on an independent experiment in spraying. Care was taken that the crop 
received neither more nor less attention, other than the spraying, than did the crop in a 
neighboring field. Rows of potatoes sprayed with Bordeaux mi.xture were grown beside 
rows receiving ordinary attention. When the resulting crops were piled side by side 
in the toolhouse, showing an increase equivalent to more than fifty bushels per acre 
for the sprayed over the unsprayed crops, and also a decided improvement in size and 
quality, the farmers sat up and did more thinking than would have been the case had they 
read of the same results in some agricultural publication. It is not so much what these 
plots teach as it is the trend of thought induced. 

The follo\%'ing extracts are from letters and reports received from teachers 
in charge of school gardens, Carleton County, Ontario: 

The school garden seems to fill in the weak parts of our education for the growing 
child, as it tends to the molding and developing of his character. I know that the general 
discipline in my room has been helped by the garden work and also that the pupils like 
their work in the schoolroom better on account of it. If our politicians would try teaching 
school with a garden and then without one for two years, as I have done, I am certain that 
they would be willing to grant all the financial support required; yes, probably be too 
liberal with it. 

(Miss) M. York 
Richmond Public School 
My pupils are more observant than they were before we started school garden work, 

and seem to acquire a clearer understanding of all their work. Mr. A told me that 

the school garden had been a benefit to his boys, and that they were more independent in 
their work both in school and out of school. 

W. Pettapiece 
Principal North Gower Public School 
I am ready to put myself on record as saying that the school garden has relieved much 
of the drudgery of the school work to which I was always accustomed. This year we had 
our school garden and it has been the pleasantest year of my school work. I would never 
again pass a summer without a school garden. I consider that the chief value of the school 
garden lies in the eCfect which it produces on the moral tone of the school. The Juvenile 
sense of ownership is the greatest insurance on the success of the garden and incidentally 
on the care of the whole school property. The garden is the central point of intcre.st for 
this end of the township, and it is not unusual to have as many as a hundred visitors at the 
garden on one Sunday afternoon. I have noticed that the cultivation of flowers has 
received more attention in the homes since the advent of the school garden, and I am often 
consulted about this work. I have not heard any unfavorable opinion expressed by 
responsible persons in this community, but on the other hand the most progressive men 
have spoken highly of the garden work. 

B. A. IIowES 

Macdonald Consolidated School, Guelph 

(Late of Bowcsnllc Public School) 



Sessions] MACDONALD COLLEGE MOVEMENT 



97 



It is impossible to overestimate the value of school gardening on our boys and girls. 
Instead of being detrimental (as at first supposed) to their advancement in the other 
branches of learning, it has had the opposite effect. Since engaging in the work my boys 
and girls have been first in all examinations, competing with children from other schools, 
including city schools. The whole tone of the school has been improved morally, socially, 
and esthetically. Our boys and girls have now a reverence for life unknown before, and 
it has awakened in them, as nothing else could do, a deeper interest in all life around 
them. It has helped to make school life a pleasure. Now the boy makes the excuse to get 
to come to school instead of the excuse to remain at home. It has aroused the interest of 
the entire community. The parents take a pride in "the work of our boys and girls in the 
school gardens," and never fail to bring visitors to see the work that is being done there. 
The pupils learn practical gardening, and already their advice and assistance are often 
sought by parents and others interested in the cultivation of plants. Its influence is seen 
also in the plots and flower borders outside. Our school board has come to realize the 
value of this work and are anxious to have it continued. 

G. A. Moore 
Principal Carp Public School 
CONSOLroATED RURAL SCHOOLS 

Four object-lesson consolidated rural schools were provided by the Mac- 
donald Rural School Fund — one in each of the four provinces of Ontario, 
New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. 

They were located at places chosen or approved by the Provincial Depart- 
ments of Education. In each case a new building was erected to take the place 
of the small schools which at that time were serving the single sections pro- 
posed to be consoHdated. They were each equipped with ordinary class- 
rooms and an assembly hall, and also for manual training, household science, 
and nature study with a school garden. 

A consolidated school board was elected according to the school law of the 
province concerned. The school in Nova Scotia was opened in September, 
1903; in New Brunswick, September, 1904; in Ontario, November, 1904, and 
in Prince Edward Island, early in the summer of 1905. 

The Macdonald Rural School Fund meets for a period of three years the 
additional expense of the consoHdated school over the cost of the small rural 
schools which formerly served the locality. The school sections contributed 
exactly the amount of the former expenditure, and the extra cost is met by the 
Macdonald fund for three years to enable the people of four provinces to have 
these object-lessons and experiments in education. 

The educational results from these schools have been entirely satisfactory 
to the authorities, to the teachers, and especially to the parents and children. 
The average daily attendance at the consolidated schools was on the whole over 
55 per cent, higher than the average daily attendance at all of the schools 
which formerly served the localities; at Kingston, N. B., it was over 140 per 
cent, higher. 

The attractiveness of the consoHdated schools becomes in itself a form of 
compulsory education — the interest of the children being the power which 
secures regular attendance. A great point has been gained when love of the 
school and love of education there set the pace for progress. 



98 NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION [Genanl 

One of the gratifying results is the large number of boys and girls, young 
men and young women, from rural homes, who are doing advanced or high- 
school work. At one of these schools there were about loo pupils in the high- 
school grades. Many of these are preparing to be teachers in rural schools. 
When teachers, who themselves have been educated in consolidated rural 
schools, with nature study, household science, and manual training, teach in 
single rural schools they will make the influence of their own training tell 
thruout many of the one-room schools. 

THE MACDONALD INSTITUTE 

Notable results have followed in several of the provinces from these object- 
lessons — consolidated rural schools. Dr. MacKay, superintendent of educa- 
tion in the province of Nova Scotia, writes that in his province 53 schools have 
been consolidated into 22 efifective ones. In the province of New Brunswick 
there are four large consolidated schools, each with nature study and school 
garden, manual training and household science. The provincial government 
pays half the cost of conveying the children and gives other special grants. 

Sir Willam Macdonald gave the sum of $182,500 to provide buildings and 
equipment at the Ontario Agricultural College, Guelph, to train teachers now 
in the service for this "new education." Besides serving that purpose the 
institute has become a headquarters for manual training, for household science, 
and for providing short courses of instruction and training for farmers' 
daughters and others in cooking, sewing, domestic art, and other branches of 
domestic economy. Two buildings were erected. Short courses of instruc- 
tion in nature study and school gardens were provided without fees to teachers. 
The governments of four eastern provinces where the consolidated schools 
were established gave scholarships to enable teachers to attend. Over 200 
teachers have already taken these courses. When pupils who pass thru con- 
solidated rural schools go on thru the normal schools, each \vith advanced 
work and suitable professional courses in manual training, nature study, and 
household science, they will be thoroly qualified to carry on this better system 
of education. 

MACDONALD COLLEGE 

Macdonald College has grown out of Sir William Macdonald's keen desire 
to help the rural population to build up the country and to make the most of 
it and themselves. In some measure it grew out of the school garden move- 
ment and the consolidated schools, to serve as a headquarters for the training 
of leaders. In some measure it grew out of the manual-training movement, 
which is a first necessity in the general education of pupils if they are to profit 
by technical and inrlustrial education afterwards. In some measure it grew 
out of the oft-exjircssed desire on the part of the educational leaders over the 
whole Dominion for such advancement and improvement of education for 
rural communities as would not only prepare the children for life at its best in 



Sessions] MACDONALD COLLEGE MOVEMENT 99 

rural occupations, but would also satisfy the people as being the right training 
for their children. 

We are standing at Macdonald College for research work and for illustra- 
tion work in three of the important matters in agriculture: the use of selected 
seed on suitably prepared ground; the proper rotation of crops (which is 
hardly understood and certainly is not practiced in the eastern part of Canada, 
excepting in parts of Ontario) ; and the protection of the crop against weeds, 
insects, and diseases. Each one of these three might increase the average 
yield as much as 25 per cent, within ten years wherever put into inteUigent, 
careful practice. Our pohcy at Macdonald College is not merely to have 
research work along these lines, but to give illustrations along these lines 
wherever our students go, and we hope by and by to make every graduate of our 
college a leader to carry out this system of farming on his farm under college 
direction. He shall have selected seed (if need be, furnished by the college) 
grown on suitably prepared soil; he shall follow a rotation of crops properly 
adapted to his locality; and he shall be capable of fighting the weeds, insects, 
and diseases. Such illustrations on his farm will be a beacon light to the whole 
locality, and thus the lessons will be brought home in an effective way. 

In our research work, because we have the means and the men, we want 
to make the benefactions of Macdonald College for rural communities extend 
as widely as possible. We carry on the work of the college in three depart- 
ments or schools. In connection with the school of agriculture we have the 
research and illustration departments of which I have spoken. Then we 
have household science with research, and instruction for the homes of the 
people. That branch treats of the three prime necessaries of life — food, 
raiment, and housing. It is just as important that the woman should be 
educated for her sphere of management as the man for his. In the school for 
teachers the instruction and training are for teachers preparing for city and 
rural schools. It is important that the rural school and its teacher should stand 
in with those two other activities — the occupations and the homes of the 
parents — and that the children should be thoroly trained toward abiUty for, 
as well as an understanding of, what will be required of them in the fields 
and in the homes. The threefold character of the college fits it to train leaders 
for rural communities. 

The work carried on at Macdonald College consists of instruction in the 
three fundamental, mothering occupations which nurture the race: first, 
farming, whereby man becomes a partner with the Ahnighty and, thru co- 
operation with nature, obtains the benefactions of Providence for food, clothing, 
and shelter; secondly, the making of homes; thirdly, the teaching of children. 

At Macdonald College the education of leaders for those fields of human 
endeavor is being carried on in close co-relation. In times gone by the segrega- 
tion of teachers-in-training, in institutions devoted exclusively to their use, 
had been no better for them than the isolated training of leaders for rural life in 
colleges of agriculture had been for their students. Until recently, neither of 



lOo NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION [General 



them had much in their courses which identified fomial or liberal educati(jn 
with the activities of the homes. The substantial advantages of co-education, 
in this larger sense, arc already evident. The homes, the schools, and the 
farms are finding the common center from which radiate plans and labors: 
"A little child shall lead them." 



LIBRPRY 


OF 


CONGRESS 


1 















002 783 057 2 



